Bandra seems to be the hub of new restaurants that open & shut with the blink of an eye. The recent entry to the list of Bandra restaurants is Umraan which is located at the junction of Pals, Mini Punjab, Khane Khaas & so on. It’s a small place that is well lit with the natural lighting coming from the see-through windows with limited number of seating. The seating however is too cramped up, let’s say if a group of over-sized people try to sit on the wooden chairs, they are going to have a very difficult time even breathing. They do have a table for two as well with small blue seaters.

This place had got me curious with all the food pictures that were floating around on Instagram & Snapchat of fellow blogger friends & so I decided to go & try out for myself. The owner of Umraan, Ms Alpana attempts to serve authentic Indian food with healthy outlook & with some modern twists. The food revolves around the “no butter, no cream, no deep fried” concept.

Even though the food does have a healthy side which is great considering the busy lives most of us lead, the flip side however is that the food is not freshly prepared. That fact right there unticked all the factors for me, the food is prepared & delivered in the morning at the restaurant from their central kitchen in thane & then re-heated as per orders in the microwave.

Assorted Veg Appetizers

I went in with a friend for lunch who was a vegetarian & thus I got to try & check out the vegetarian as well as the non-vegetarian options. On request for small tasting portions, they were kind enough to give us an assorted appetizer plate for both, veg as well as non-veg so that we could try most of the dishes on the menu. The veg had three paneer dishes – Paneer Pataka, Paneer Kundapur & Videsi Paneer & three types of pan fried tikki’s – Desi Tikki, Gobi Surprise & Coco-ti. We both really enjoyed this assorted veg platter, the balance of the spices of the paneer kebabs was quite good but due to reheating the paneer was a tad bit dry. The tikki’s had a great flavour & even though they were pan fried, they were quite enjoyable. My picks from the vegetarian options would be Videsi Paneer, Desi Tikki & Coco-ti.

Assorted Non-Veg Appetizers

In the non-veg appetizers too I was given a mix of all the options in a platter form for the tasting. I tried all the 5 non-veg appetizers – Chicken Pataka, Kukdukoo, Videsi Chicken, Twisted CT, Yenna Chicken & Chicken Masti. After being re-heated in the microwave, the veg platter was still decent fare however most of the chicken kebabs had turned dry & a bit chewy. Out of all the 5 starters, I really liked the Masti Chicken & the Videsi Chicken only because the flavours were great.

Videsi Paneer Wrap

Chicken Bhuna Pav

We moved on to the wraps & main course & tried the Videsi Paneer Wrap & went for the Nachni wrap as our base out of the three options i.e. Nachni, Herbed, Lacha. The wrap was good with a good amount of videsi paneer filling along with a few sauces. In the mains, we tried the Chicken Bhuna Pav & small portions of Haryali Chole & Chicken Kofta Curry. I personally love Kheema so the Chicken Bhuna was something I quite liked but again the reheating made the chicken bhuna drier & the pav harder for me to thoroughly enjoy my meal.

Haryali Chole, Chicken Kofta Curry and Laccha Paratha

Haryali Chole, Chicken Kofta Curry and Laccha Paratha

The Haryali Chole & Chicken Kofta Curry both come with a small serving of Dal Tadka & a Laccha Paratha but since I am not fond of Dal Tadka I asked them not to serve it along with my meal. The Haryali Chole were healthy & tasted decent but I personally enjoyed the gravy of the Chicken Kofta curry. The chicken kofta itself had become a little hard from the exterior due to reheating but the gravy was a complete winner for me.

Pataka Cola

Imli Mojito

Berry Rasmalai

When it came to Beverages & Desserts, they were out of stock for most of the options that I wanted to try. Thus, we settled for the Imli Mojito & Pataka Cola in Beverages & Berry Rasmalai in Desserts. The Imli Mojito was quite average & the Pataka Cola was refreshing but too heavy handed with salt. Both are completely avoidable. Even the Berry Rasmalai was quite sweet, there was no sign of any fresh berry but instead it was flavoured with artificial flavour which over powered the whole dish making it too sweet.

Over all my meal was quite below average & if given a choice, I wouldn’t visit Umraan again. The food lacked freshness & sadly, the only surprising element for me was that when we requested for an extra plate for main course, we were told that they didn’t have any & were given small foil paper plates instead.

WARNING – DO NOT USE THE HAND SANTIZER AT UMRAAN. It smelled like bathroom cleaning liquid & my skin started peeling off the next day.